Man of Steel (ENGLISH)

Man of Steel (Hans Zimmer). Nowdays, Zimmer is, undoubtedly, the most effective of the A-list composers. His gift to turn his music into a so enhancer element is easily imitated but difficultly overcome. It is for it that his work attracts so much the attention of practically the totality of the directors who try to work with him or to induce other composers to imitate his style.

His way of creating tension for films of action, thriller or science fiction is easily recognizable, and doesn't seem to tire to an industry that prefers not risking too much at the moment of creating original scores. His music creates an atmosphere that likes so much in Hollywood that the temp tracks that are facilitated to the composers as guide to create their scores are riddled with his music. And the musical loop is such that the proper Zimmer has declared in some occasion that he obtain the temp tracks with his own music to imitate himself. Certain tracks created by him also have been widely used for trailers, though nowadays the proliferation of companies dedicated expressly to the film advertising has reduced his protagonism in this field.

In Man of Steel, Zimmer is still faithful to his style, he shows on the music his unquestionable stamp, which, nowadays, I would dare to define it almost as a subgenre of the film scoring music. In spite of being faithful to his style, in Man of Steel, Zimmer works out victorious, creating good themes, themes that movie after movie make think that prompt the gunpowder of creation will become exhausted, but work after work he demonstrates adaptation and squeeze his talent to surprise us with something new.

The score is solid as it was expected, with audible enough themes and melodies made in Zimmer that always please. In this case, and in spite of possessing an percussionist team ambitious enough, the score does not turn out to be ever strident, like it could happen in any of the passages from long action cues of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, for example. The creation of own themes for this renewed version of Superman, having to be abstracted of the wonderful music that John Williams was creating for the classic version and that it was marrying to the perfection with that version, is the most valuable of this score. In the first moment, it might wait for a wink of Zimmer for Williams's theme, with the connivance of the director of the film, theme that is strongly established in the American culture and inevitably bound to the character of Superman. And one thing that the music of Man of Steel cannot overcome is precisely this theme, and if in a future anyone asks someone to whistles the theme of Superman, this person will execute THE THEME (with capital letters) of Williams, never one of Zimmer, because the conception of the score of Man of Steel is totally different, and does not exist a theme so clearly identified with the hero as the one that composed Williams. On the other hand, this doesn't seem but a good decision, for several reasons: first, because ordering Zimmer to create a theme as significant as the theme of Williams had been a tremendously unjust even for the great Hans Zimmer; and second, because of having done it, the comparisons always would have been odious, and it would have supposed entering in war that would not benefit to anybody.

The Deluxe Edition reaches approximately half an hour more than the standard edition. The incorporation of the track Man of Steel (Hans' Original Sketchbook) with a duration of 28 minutes, as well as a few final tracks of more difficult digestion (that seem to be slightly more experimental), suggests that this edition is far from being a complete score like we could hope, and that an important part of the music composed for the movie is still for releasing.

In spite of it, Man of Steel (Hans' Original Sketchbook) turns out to be more interesting than a priori could be expected, offering a vision slightly different from the themes that are heard along the score.